Bad Blood

by David Bussell

  She?

  Then it all clicked into place.

  It wasn’t Layton who’d hired this lunatic.

  The painted snake around my neck tightened again and I felt my eyes bulge from their sockets, felt my body go into convulsions. The moment was upon me. It was now or never. From behind my back I produced a long sliver of glass, snatched from the floor among all the shattered neon. Ignoring the pain, I gripped the glass tight and drove it forward, slipping it between Jek’s ribs and driving it upwards. He recoiled, eyes wide, his snake slipping from my neck like a severed noose. With one hand pressed to the wound to stem the bleeding, he staggered backwards, propping a shoulder against a derailed roller coaster car.

  ‘That’s not supposed… to happen,’ he wheezed, pistoning his non-snake arm and ejecting a tattooed sword.

  He moved woozily, but despite the damage I’d done, he was still in better shape than I was. I could barely stand, let alone fight, and I wasn’t packing a dirty great chopper. I knew who ordered Leo’s kidnapping now, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was broken and bloody. I was beaten.

  Still clutching his wound, Jek came my way, preparing to run me through. I put out my hands to defend myself but the effort was futile, I was only offering another piece of myself for piercing. Jek lunged forward and pulled back his arm to deliver the deathblow—

  When he heard a voice from above—

  ‘You know what they say about Cupid?’ asked the winged baby with the drawn bow.

  Jek snarled at him, his teeth coated red with blood.

  ‘He always aims for the heart.’

  Cupid pulled the bow’s string back to its fullest point, the arrow atop his hand quivering with unspent tension.

  Jek weighed up the pros and cons of retaliating, but Cupid had him nailed, and I was back on my feet. ‘So sad, I must go now,’ he said, backing away slowly, ‘but not without a kiss…’

  The tattooed serpent darted from his arm, brushed the side of my throat, and whipped back again. Cupid went to loose his arrow but Jek was already on the move. He vaulted the roller coaster car with a grunt, painting it with a blood red go faster stripe before sinking into the darkness like liquid shadow.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ asked Cupid.

  It all happened so fast.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, slapping a hand to my neck and immediately getting an answer as my fingers located two distinct punctures.

  I staggered in the direction of the coaster car, shot out an arm, and just about succeeded in stopping myself from going to the ground.

  ‘Ah, Jesus,’ said Cupid, swooping down from the warehouse’s sagging rafters and settling beside me. ‘He got you.’

  ‘Poison,’ I said, stating the obvious.

  My throat was already beginning to tighten and my extremities were going numb. Next thing I knew my legs had given out, leaving me draped across the coaster car like a slice of melted cheese.

  ‘That don’t look good,’ said Cupid, grimacing as he inspected my neck.

  My head lolled to one side and I caught sight of my shoulder. The infection had already spread from my throat and was heading down my left arm, shooting it through with angry, black veins.

  ‘You have… to suck… it out,’ I gasped.

  Cupid pulled a face like a bulldog chewing a thistle. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, my skin was turning purple now.

  ‘You are, ya perv.’

  ‘How am I... a perv?’

  ‘Like you don’t know! Begging a grown-up baby to suck on you. I’ve met some dirty buggers in my time, Banks, but this takes the biscuit.’

  Admittedly, what I was asking did have a whiff of deviancy about, but given the severity of the situation, I wasn’t too bothered by the optics.

  ‘I’m dying… you… twat...’

  ‘Give over, you are. I know those tattoos heal you up. This is just fetish stuff.’

  ‘No... magic left,’ I said.

  I wasn’t lying. I was all burned out. If I didn’t get that poison out of my system fast, I was getting cancelled.

  Cupid ran a leery eye over my ink and saw how faded it was. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Please,’ I begged, my windpipe all but closed now.

  His eyes turned to slits. ‘You better not be bullshitting me.’

  ‘Just… do it…’ I hissed. I was so weak that I could barely make my lips form the words.

  Cupid looked me dead in the eyes, then peeled a final glance at my bite. ‘You tell anyone about this and we’re done. Got that?’

  I rolled my head to the other side and felt my chin pressing into my chest as gravity concocted a nod.

  Cupid sighed. ‘You owe me one, Banks. A big one.’

  He leaned in an locked his lips around the bite. I felt a pulling sensation against my skin as the suction slowly syphoned the venom from my veins. As he continued to suck, I felt a tingling in my toes and realised the feeling was returning to my limbs. It was working. Finally, after a couple of minutes at least, Cupid turned his head and hawked a fat gobbet of black tar on the warehouse floor.

  ‘There, you happy?’ he asked, spitting out the last of it and wiping his mouth.

  ‘I’m doing a Snoopy dance on the inside,’ I replied.

  Cupid chuckled then looked in the direction Jek had left in. ‘Well, what now? Do we go after him?’

  ‘No, let him go,’ I replied, still panting for breath.

  Cupid put a pudgy mitt on my shoulder. ‘You okay, Banks?’

  ‘Yeah, never been better,’ I replied, climbing to my feet. ‘I got everything I needed.’

  14

  All heads turned as I kicked open the door of the Galoffis’ drawing room. Layton, Millie, the pulp-nosed henchman, each of them wheeled about in unison as the hunk of wood crashed flat.

  ‘Knock knock, fuck faces.’

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ demanded Layton, drawing his pistol and levelling it at me.

  ‘This is me coming in here with the big end of story reveal. I’m like Poirot, but without the moustache.’ I pointed a finger at Busey’s Stuntman. ‘Don’t you say a word, turd.’

  ‘Have you found him? Have you found our boy?’ asked Millie.

  ‘Oh, very good. That is Oscar-worthy stuff,’ I said, clapping. ‘Oh, sorry,’ I said, stopping clapping and looking down at my two hands, ‘is that offensive to you now?’

  ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t part your skull with a bullet,’ asked Layton, a vein in his temple throbbing fit to burst.

  I aimed a finger at his sister/wife. ‘I know you did it, Millie. I don’t know why, but I know you’re the one.’

  Layton turned to Millie then back to me. ‘What in the world are you talking about, woman?’

  ‘It’s her. She’s the one behind Leo’s kidnapping.’

  The henchman came barrelling my way with a sloping, ape-like gait, but screeched to a halt when I shot him a look that reminded him why his head looked like a thumb after an accident with a table saw. Of course, he wasn’t to know my tattoos were exhausted and that he could have snapped me over his knee if the mood took him, which it most definitely would have.

  Millie was hysterical, hanging off Layton with her one remaining arm like a drowner clinging to a passing log. ‘Is that woman saying I paid someone to carve up my baby boy? She’s out of her damned mind!’

  ‘Is that right?’ I replied. ‘Then how come I tracked Sharez Jek to your warehouse, and how come he told me the person who hired him was you? Huh?’

  Millie looked at me in open-mouthed shock.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what you call a motherfucking checkmate, bitch. I mean, I’ve met some crazy in my time, took some of it to bed in fact, but chopping your own arm off to cover your tracks? That is some next-level loopy.’

  ‘Lies,’ she screeched.

  Layton lowered the gun and turned to his wife. He didn’t say anything. Sometimes you don’t need to.

  ‘I had
nothing to do with this, I swear,’ Millie insisted, beating a fist against her brother’s chest. ‘You know I didn’t. You know!’

  Layton’s face was grey. He rocked back on his heels, jaw slack, lower lip quivering. ‘You…?’

  ‘Yep,’ I said, feeling pretty pleased with myself. ‘Sharez Jek told me after I, uh, beat the crap out of him. Which is completely what happened, by the way.’

  ‘He said it was my sister? He said her name?’

  ‘Yes he did.’ I thought back to what he’d told me, when I’d had a tattoo of a snake wrapped around my neck. ‘Well, okay, he never gave a name, but he said “her”, and who else in this fucked up family could have done this?’

  ‘Actually,’ said a new voice, ‘I can answer that.’

  The hairs on the nape of my neck snapped to attention. I turned around to see a young, dark-haired girl in a night dress standing in the ruins of the busted doorway.

  Sophia.

  She was cradling something in her arms: a swaddled baby boy, his head wrapped in a bloodied bandage.

  ‘Leo!’ the Galoffis cried as one.

  There he was, the kidnapped boy. He looked even more like James in real life. Even more like my lost brother.

  ‘What the fuck?’ was about all I could manage as Sophia walked proudly towards her parents. Millie went to scoop the child from Sophia’s arms, but there was something about the smirk on her daughter’s face that kept her at bay.

  ‘No,’ Millie stammered. ‘You did this?’

  Sophia grinned like a split watermelon. ‘Of course I did. I hired Sharez Jek and had him take my brother for me. I like Jek, he’s funny. Lots of funny, silly stories.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Layton, horrified.

  ‘Why? Why! Isn’t it obvious? Because I’m your rightful heir, that’s why! Not this… this mewling crotch fruit!’ she cried, shaking the baby like a British nanny. ‘Me!’

  I’d been right. The kidnap had been an inside job, just not in the way I’d expected.

  Millie cocked her head. ‘You mean to say you did all this just to get our attention?’

  Sophia’s eyebrows knitted together. ‘Not just for attention, mother, to show you that I deserve to carry the crown.’

  ‘And this is how you prove your loyalty? This is how you prove that you deserve to run the family one day,’ asked Layton. ‘By torturing us? By having us maim ourselves? By mailing us parts of your baby brother?’

  ‘It seemed the best way, yes,’ Sophia replied, coolly.

  ‘I lost an arm,’ said Millie.

  ‘Perhaps you’d have only lost a finger like Father if you hadn’t struck me.’

  ‘Damn, girl,’ I said with appreciation, thinking back to the little backhand swipe Millie had given her daughter when I’d first stepped into this mess. ‘You are one cold-blooded piece of work.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So this was all a power play?’ asked Layton.

  Millie’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Your brother, Joshua…’

  The older one, the dead one, the one who’d drowned in the family pool.

  ‘...Did you have something to do with that?’ asked Layton, finishing Millie’s thought.

  Sophia offered a weary sigh, the kind teenagers are fond of. ‘Of course I did. How else was I going to inherit what was rightfully mine? Knocking off Joshie put me next in line.’ She shot her father a withering look. ‘At least until you sired this bag of guts and told me no daughter would ever head up this family. Really, this is all your fault. What was I supposed to do?’

  As if sensing he was being talked about, little Leo began to cry.

  The broken-nosed henchman, who had been quietly skirting the room while the Galloffis played out their twisted melodrama, struck out with surprising speed, seizing Sophia from behind. He caught her in a bearhug, wrapping his turkey drumstick arms around her and lifting her bare feet off the ground along with the baby she was carrying.

  Layton took aim with his pistol and cocked the hammer.

  ‘Whoa, easy there,’ I said, trying to defuse the situation, ‘the baby’s okay, no one needs to die here.’

  ‘Oh, but they do,’ said Layton. His eyes landed on Sophia, who squirmed helplessly in the goon’s grip. ‘My daughter. You betrayed your family. You murdered one of your own and wounded the rest of us, and you did it all to become my heir apparent. I cannot let that go unanswered.’

  Sophia closed her eyes.

  Layton lined up a shot and squeezed the trigger.

  A bullet spat from the gun, bright red in the ill-lit room—

  And the back of the goon’s head exploded.

  Bits of skull and brain pebble-dashed the wall behind him, then his knees gave way, his arms slipped free of his captive, and his body went down like a felled oak.

  ‘That’s my girl!’ roared Layton, scooping up Sophia and whirling her around like a proud father. ‘I was starting to wonder if you had it in you!’

  What the hell?

  ‘Bravo, Sophia! Bravo!’ chimed Millie. ‘I’m so proud of you, my girl. I’d clap if only I could,’ she added, flapping her one remaining arm.

  ‘Our little girl just became a woman!’

  Millie kissed her daughter’s forehead. ‘Ruthless, vicious, totally without mercy… a true Galoffi.’

  My eyes darted to the murdered henchman with his brains blown out, then to the mutilated baby, still cradled in Sophia’s arms.

  ‘So let me get this straight; she murders one of your kids, gets the ears cut off another one, and you reward her for it?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Layton. ‘Sophia has shown the true mark of a leader today. Of a Galoffi. She has proven that she will do anything—absolutely anything—to earn her spot as my successor. It is our way. Our nature. Why, I killed half of my family growing up.’

  ‘What better way to convince us that she is Layton’s rightful beneficiary than by following in his footsteps?’ asked Millie, genuinely stumped by my confusion.

  ‘What about the Red-Eyed Man?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Sophia.

  ‘You said the man who took Leo had glowing red eyes. Was he part of this too? Part of the scam?’

  ‘Oh, I remember. Ha. Actually, it was you that mentioned red eyes, I just went along with it to make you happy. It’s easier for people to go along with things if they’re more invested. Distracts from the truth.’

  ‘God, she’s good, isn’t she?’ said Layton, pleased as punch.

  ‘Yeah…’ I replied, wanting to beat the girl until her head was silly putty, ‘she’s great.’

  Sophia handed the bandaged child off to her mother and headed for the stairs with a yawn. The little bitch had played me. There never had been a man with red eyes involved. It was her and Sharez Jek all along.

  ‘Night night, sweetheart,’ said Layton, beaming with fatherly pride. ‘We’ll talk some more in the morning.’

  ‘Don’t forget,’ Sophia said over her shoulder.

  ‘Forget what?’ asked Layton.

  ‘To pay the lady,’ she replied, nodding in my direction.

  Layton slapped his forehead. ‘Of course, how foolish of me.’ He scurried over to a credenza, produced a fountain pen, and cut me a cheque. ‘Here, I hope this will suffice...’

  I snatched it off him and scanned the sum. There were noughts there, and plenty of them. I thrust the cheque into my pocket, satisfied but a long way from happy.

  ‘You know, you creepy bastards should think about doing a reality show, you’d make a fortune.’

  I didn’t stick around after that, I’d had quite enough of the Galoffis and their demented soap opera. I got in my car, found my way back to my flat, and felt the black wave of sleep fold over me before I’d even hit the bed.

  15

  ‘I’m sorry, you did what?’ asked Lana, eyes wide.

  ‘It was nothing,’ I replied. ‘I got hired by some incestuous gangsters, met a poltergeist, fought a couple of Cthulhu monsters, then got the shit beaten out of me
by a guy with living tattoos. Just another day at the office, really.’

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ she muttered. ‘Here, give me that...’

  She thrust out her hand, fingers twitching for the hip flask I was drinking from. I gave it to her and she took a sip before making a pained face and handing it back to me.

  ‘Happy?’ I asked.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she replied. ‘My cousin almost got herself killed, and I’m here in the arse end of town, sitting on a wall and drinking cheap booze.’

  She surveyed our less than salubrious surroundings. We were sat on a low brick wall facing a fenced off council estate in a rough part of Brighton. The night had drawn in, and a howling wind played the telegraph wires above us like harp strings.

  ‘Here,’ I said, handing Lana my hip flask again and snatching it back the second she’d finished her sip.

  I downed the last of it, smacking my lips.

  ‘How much of that have you had?’ asked Lana.

  ‘One slug less than I need to feel human,’ I replied, pulling a bottle of whiskey from my other pocket and taking a bolt.

  Lana sighed. ‘Why do you even have a hip flask if you’re just going to carry around whole bottles of whiskey?’

  ‘I’m a complicated woman.’

  ‘You’re a drunk.’

  ‘Potato potato.’

  Lana shook her head and shifted to her other buttock. ‘As good as it is to see you, there are nicer places to take a girl than a wall opposite some knackered old council estate.’

  ‘You don’t recognise it?’

  Lana cocked her head and squinted at the place. ‘Wait a second… this is where you grew up, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Jesus. I haven’t even driven past this place in… well, in forever.’

  The Galloffi case had been a bust, but that didn’t mean it had been a total waste of time. I’d met someone else who was witness to my brother’s kidnap. At least a part of it. First Carlisle and now Ruby, the ghost still wafting around my past. Two people had now proven that the things I’d been saying for years were true. Two people in a matter of weeks. That felt… important. Significant. Like maybe I might be making a move in the right direction. Okay, the Red-Eyed Man hadn’t actually been involved in the Galoffi case, but I still felt like I’d taken one step closer to him. Plus I’d made a shit-load of money.